Chocolate, orchid, honey. Read any review about Keemun and you’ll have to contend with wildly different descriptions of its taste. The truth is this tea comes in so many grades that it is easy to find traces of just about everything in it.
That said, a good Keemun does have a thick liquor with a floral aroma. Among the very best are Keemun Mao Fen and Keemun Hao Ya (Hao Ya A denotes tea made from first plucking of the season, Hao Ya B the second plucking, which is distinctly less expensive).
Keemun is grown at modest altitude at the foot of the hauntingly beautiful Huangshan mountains in Chinaâ??s Qimen county. Situated west of Shanghai, this area is part of the Anhui province, which is one of the country’s great tea producers. Keemun–also known as the tea from the lion’s mountain–is perhaps its best-known crop.
It is therefore all the more surprising to discover that this tea actually has a rather short history. Although black tea first appeared in China–where it is called red tea–during the Ming Era (14th to 15th century), Keemun was only created in the late 19th century during the Qing dynasty. Stories of how it was first conceived abound. The one I like best says that the idea came to a young government official who had fallen from favor and lost his job. Rather than spending his time feeling sorry for himself, he went around tea plantations in the Fujian province to discover their secret for making black tea. Armed with this knowledge, he returned home to Qimen county–where only green tea had been made until then–and started making black tea for a living. Keemun was born.
Bizarrely enough, very little of this nectar is drunk in China. Most of it makes it to the export market. Most of the lower ones go into blends–Russian Caravan and some Breakfast ones–but the higher grades are fabulous on their own.
Steep leaves for a few minutes in boiling water. Everyday Keemun goes well with milk.
Get it from Adagio Teas